KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — Former Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Musa Hassan is urging the government to review its asset procurement system as there could be shortcomings in settling the annual allocations, especially at the end of the year.

He said this was to avoid use of excess amounts from the allocations for the purchase of new assets that were unrelated when the excess could be brought forward to the following year.

“This needs to change. If the allocation is not exhausted, the balance can be carried forward to the next year, otherwise the purchase of unimportant things will emerge.

“For example, during my time, it had reached the level of buying toilet paper to be placed in the lock-ups (in order to finish up the annual allocation). When I checked, (I) instructed to send the tissues to other divisions, as there was certainly no toilet paper used in the lock-ups,” he told reporters after the closing of the Certified Integrity Officers (CeIO) programme, here, today.

Musa said each procurement should also be subject to more aggressive internal auditing to check if the assets purchased were in accordance with the specifications and also to ensure the authenticity of certain assets.

“If it is not according to the specifications, the government will lose. The measure (suggested) can save government funds and avoid wastage.

“There had been a case of purchasing counterfeit brake pads worth RM2 million for police vehicles...and when I checked, I took appropriate action against the seller for defrauding the government,” he said.

Musa said asset procurement plans should also be made in a right and efficient manner, so that a government department or agency knew exactly what it wanted to purchase at the end of the year.

At today’s event, 35 officers, among them staff of the Prisons Department, the Federal Court of Malaysia, Royal Malaysian Navy and Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) received the CeIO programme certificates.  — Bernama